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OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL - REVIEW

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After Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland received mostly unimpressed reviews from critics and audiences alike, that the studio jumped right into yet another fantasy classic reboot/sequel/prequel/whatever is surprising and somewhat risky. Then again Alice In Wonderland made a badgillion dollars at the box office... So yeah, never mind. It makes perfect sense lol This time around, we get Sam Raimi taking on the works of L. Frank Baum, and when I say that I mean it very loosely because we don't get a sequel involving Dorothy and co or even an amalgamation of Baum's third and fourth Oz books (tackled brilliantly in the 80's by Return To Oz ). No, we're following the wizard himself! Not quite what you'd expect but an interesting take on the whole thing, let's see if it works. After all, the first film was called The Wizard Of Oz not "Dorothy's Big Adventure". Mostly... yes. It does work. Ok, I'll get the bad stuff out of the way

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN - REVIEW

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Roger Moore's second outing as 007 is a weird one... For one thing the film opens by zooming into Christopher Lee's nipples. Of which he has three. Lee plays Scaramanga, a wealthy entrepreneur with a secret desert island where he's not only building some kind of sun-powered death ray but also toying with a psychedelic fun-house-style room designed to discombobulate whoever enters it and get them killed. He's also extremely proud of his one-bullet golden gun made out of a cigarette case, a pen, a lighter and whatever else. He's one of the great Bond villains mostly because he is so darn happy with his absurd achievements and isn't afraid to show off a little. His henchman, Nick Nack, isn't quite as intimidating as the likes of Goldfinger 's OddJob (his one weakness is luggage ) but he is nevertheless just as memorable. The plot involves 007 being sent some golden bullet which MI6 believes to have come from Scaramanga and Bond is sent on a new s

BEST FILM OF 2012 - THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE

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Well, the polls have finally closed and I can now reveal that the Best Film Of 2012 , for the faithful followers and visitors of The RetroCritic blog is none other than... SKYFALL Seeing as 007's latest was more or less shunned by both the Golden Globes and the Oscars, I'm quite happy that at least here, on this tiny-ass blog of mine, we finally all came together and agreed: Skyfall was awesome. Although I personally enjoyed every Daniel Craig Bond films to date, Quantum Of Solace was hardly a hit with most so Skyfall, in some ways, was a return to form. Not just that but it celebrated the 50 years of Bond considerably better than when Die Another Day tried to reference past Bond outings. After the whole MGM mess, the future of 007 was unsure and we waited quite a bit of time for his next adventure so the fact that Sam Mendes delivered the goods and didn't disappoint was very refreshing. What we got was a smart thriller, a gripping action movie which deve

STEEL DAWN - REVIEW

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Patrick Swayze. In a Mad Max -style post-apocalyptic future. With a sword. In the 80's. Why would you NOT watch that movie?! It almost sounds too good to be true, and it is. The film starts off just like you'd hoped, with a very silly, very cheap-looking sequence involving Swayze being attacked by sand mummies. To give you an idea, the scene ends with Swayze making the SAND bleed. Yup, it is that awesome. Then he meets up with an old friend, some martial arts master and/or sheriff-type dude and just when you expect things to go all Kung-Fu , a bunch of bad leather-wearin' rejects from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome show up to drag the plot down to something resembling a cliched western minus the hats. Which I do like, genre-bending is welcome in most films as far as I'm concerned, but I really wanted Steel Dawn to go all out. Instead of ripping off every Mad Max film and every Sergio Leone flick ever made, why not differentiate from that Mel Gibson-starring

GOLDFINGER - REVIEW

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Goldfinger , the quintessential Bond film. The one many consider to be the best of the bunch and Sean Connery's finest. It follows the terrific  From Russia With Love and sees Bond investigating a wealthy entrepreneur with a penchant for gold (and golf) who goes by the unlikely name of Goldfinger (played by Gert Frobe) and who may or may not be plotting something sinister. The man is portrayed as a bit of a lightweight early on, it's hard to imagine the guy being a real threat to the status quo, but when 007 starts messing with him effortlessly we soon start to realize that there might be more to the dude than it originally seemed as most of what Bond does backfires eventually. Bond girl number 1 suffers a gruesome DEATH BY GOLD, Bond girl number 2 just doesn't make it and the spy himself ends up fearing for his gonads for the very first time. Somehow Bond manages to stick around after that and the rest of the film basically centers around the MI6 agent hanging ar

BOND: THE CRAIG YEARS - A COMIC

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Gotta love those exciting, exotic locations recent Bond outings have given us... I kid. I kid 'cause I love.

MOONRAKER - REVIEW

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Love 'em or hate 'em, the Roger Moore years were certainly worth a watch. I mean, look at the above poster. Why would you NOT go and see that? Ah Moonraker . I had forgotten this entire film but I had a feeling that re-watching it might just prove it to be so bad it would actually tower above Never Say Never Again and On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the ultimate best worst Bond movie. The very idea of 007 IN SPACE sounded ludicrous but kind of awesome so I was really looking forward to revisiting this one properly. Hm, how do I put this... Moonraker... Isn't THAT bad. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's silly, but not in the hilarious "bad movie" way I was expecting. The main problem with Moonraker isn't it's OTT plot but rather that the build-up to the whole space thing is crazy-boring. You know where the movie is going right off the bat, you've seen the poster! And yet it's like the film spends 90 minutes fumbling i

A VIEW TO A KILL - REVIEW

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Talk about a good set-up! You've got a cool title, a kickass Duran Duran theme song, Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, all in a Bond film! How is this not widely known as THE best 007 flick out there? I'll tell ya: HORSES . Yeah, you know what's not cool to have in a Bond film? An extensive amount of time spent talking about or riding horses. I mean, I like the countryside and the pooey smell of stables as much as anyone but... Remember that scene in Goldfinger where Bond is playing golf with the titular villain? Now imagine if that scene was about an hour long. Ouch. Alright, I know it sounds like I'm panning A View To A Kill pretty harshly, but don't get me wrong: I like the movie! Christopher Walken's Max Zorin is a cool villain, Grace Jones is as striking as ever as henchwoman May Day, I like the opening ski scene, as silly as it is, and the third act is actually pretty darn decent. You've got a chase up and down the Eiffel Tower, Bond a

AVGN: THE MOVIE - TRAILER

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Congrats to James Rolfe and co. over at Cinemassacre : flick looks awesome ;) Can. Not. Wait.

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER - REVIEW

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After re-watching the mostly abysmal Never Say Never Again , I wasn't too keen on fitting in a quick watch of Diamonds Are Forever , a movie I barely remembered and didn't recall being particularly wowed by in the first place. Turns out this one is actually not too bad. The film opens like a Saturday morning cartoon with Bond making his way to Blofeld's lair and encountering a cloning mudbath which actually IS as silly as it sounds. Once the plot starts, though, Diamonds Are Forever finally starts resembling a movie and a somewhat convoluted plot involving dodgy diamond trades, diamond-powered satellites, gay serial killers, cat clones and plenty of ladies far too young for old Sean in inexplicably skimpy outfits, begins. Oh, and it turns out the safety of the entire world rests upon one cassette tape. Clearly one of Blofeld's better constructed megalomaniac plans. Two things prevent this Bond outing from being on the same level as Never Say Never Again: 1/ S

SKYFALL - VLOG 07/11/12

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I talk Skyfall for aaaages. Warning: SPOILERS ahead.

SKYFALL - REVIEW

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How do you revive a formula over 20 movies in? How do you keep the series fresh and interesting? You Skyfall . If Casino Royale  was the reboot the Bond franchise needed, then Skyfall is the boot up the reboot the Bond franchise needed. After a long wait, this new installment had to deliver, especially seeing as Quantum Of Solace was pretty poorly received by critics and audiences. With a mammoth running time of two and a half hours, a cool trailer preceding it and a promising cast, Sam Mendes' new Bond looked set to be something pretty special. And indeed, I'm happy to report, it is. Here we have a Bond film which not only sets out to tell a compelling 007 tale but honor the now 50 year-old franchise with tons of clever, sometimes quite subtle, references to classic Bond films not to mention a more personal and, ultimately, more meaningful approach to the character. Yes you've got your old Aston Martin, your baby Q (played by Ben Whishaw), new gadgets but Skyf

KILLING THEM SOFTLY - REVIEW

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Killing Them Softly has been sold thusfar as a cool, action packed Brad Pitt-starring gangster flick but I find that it's more of a serious version of Burn After Reading ! Think about it: here's a film that's more about the politics behind criminal goings-on than it is about the events themselves with a hardly seamless plan gone wrong, Pitt himself, some surprise casualties and a clueless puppetmaster keeping it all in check, kind of. If Joel and Ethan Coen had been in a worse mood when penning the infinitely more cartoonish Burn After Reading, this is probably what we would have ended up with. As it stands, I'm quite happy we got both. Killing Them Softly will disappoint those expecting the next gangster epic, there is some action there but it comes in short, out-of-nowhere, effective bursts. Most of the time we follow Brad Pitt's hitman as he goes around trying to organize the appropriate retaliation for a poker game heist set up by one of their own. Bas

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA - REVIEW

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Man the critics were rough on this one... Now I'm one of the first to bash whatever new tired kid-friendly animated flicks come out these days: Madagascar 3 , Ice Age 4 , The Lorax ... not for me. That said, there are the occasional ones that slip through the cracks and actually end up being pretty good ( ParaNorman , The Pirates ). Hotel Transylvania I found to be in-between. On the one hand you've got its gorgeous animation, its clever premise, its fun winks to old horror movies, its colorful characters and on the other you have... ...the singing. Actually you have an Adam Sandler Dracula RAP. I'll let that sink in. ... Theeeere it is. Ok, so that sounds like hell but trust me: Hotel Transylvania is worth a go. For one thing it's a lot of fun. It's pretty darn relentless and certainly never wastes any of its time: it's fast, punchy and nuts going for a Tex Avery-style random toon-craziness we haven't seen achieved quite this well sinc

SPIDER-MAN 3 - REVIEW

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Widely recognised as THE worst Spider-Man film to date, Spider-Man 3 was Sam Raimi's final outing as the Marvel hero's puppetmaster. Watching it back when it came out I was left entertained but a little bit confused to say the least. It looked like a decent Spider-Man movie and yet... Something was a bit off. Spider-Man 3 sees Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) yet again screwing things up with Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and donning the black Venom suit as a million other things happen. You've got Thomas Haden Church turning into The Sandman and causing havok around the city for whatever reason, you've got James Franco's Harry Osborn finally taking over the Goblin suit (well, a  snowboard and a Cobra outfit), you've got Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) being introduced... it's certainly a handful and much more than just the usual mad-scientist-goes-nuts scenario. By the end you'll be wishing for a straight-forward mad scientist plot though... A lo

JAMES BOND'S MAKEOVER

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LICENCE TO KILL - REVIEW

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Licence To Kill is one of those Bond titles I remember watching several times over the years and enjoying ok. When I think about it, all I can ever picture is someone getting eaten by sharks and a freakishly young Benicio Del Toro falling to his death down some kind of conveyor belt. A re-watch later and that's still all I remember from that movie! Not that it's bad, it's actually pretty decent, but something about it just fails to make it stand out from the pack for me. The plot is actually really good with Bond's long-time American pal Felix Leiter getting chomped on by the villain's sharks on his wedding day and Bond defying M by officially resigning from MI6 and going on a rogue revenge mission. Helping him on his quest is Bond girl #1 Pam Bouvier, played by Carey Lowell, who gets a strange, if yummy, makeover about halfway through and, believe it or not, Q who proves himself to be one hell of a friend by showing up mid-mission and helping out with

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - REVIEW

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Having never been a fan of Roger Moore's take on Bond, I have to say that, with the exception of Live And Let Die , I barely remembered the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me or For Your Eyes Only . So revisiting those was a bit of a must. The Spy Who Loved Me is Moore's fourth movie and as such lacks the oomph and general quality of the first couple of outings but it does fit into the pre- Moonraker category not only literally (it IS just before Moonraker :P) but also in terms of it being before Moore's films started getting really, groaningly ridiculous. This one sees Bond face a nutty villain with an underwater/overwater lair who enjoys sending people through an elevator down to a shark-infested pool of death Team America 's Kim Jong Il-style. 007 is joined by Russian Agent XXX who is played not by Vin Diesel but Barbara Bach, queen of B movies and... whatever Caveman was meant to be. Sadly, she really is the weakest link in this movie performance-wise making her

SKYFALL - TRAILER

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Finally, here is the first teaser trailer for 007's next: Skyfall . Doesn't give much away but man are they going for "epicness" this time around. Looks fab. Bring it on.

SKYFALL - TEASER POSTER

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Here's the first teaser poster for 007's new Sam Mendes-directed outing Skyfall , expect a trailer on Monday! It doesn't tell us much more about the movie itself but it'll have to do until Monday. Lets hope that Bond isn't actually 5cm tall and doesn't walk inside an actual gunbarrel in the finished film though, that would be ridiculous...   Hilariculous in fact!